Lifestyles

Former ad man Alex Bogusky talks about Boulder, SmartWool, bikes and being American

Alex Bogusky in his garage/workshop at his Boulder home. (Photo: Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

ALEX BOGUSKY

He accomplished about as much as possible in advertising — building a small firm into an international powerhouse, winning numerous awards, being named by Adweek magazine in 2010 "Creative Director of the Decade" after putting the "king" back in Burger King, and crafting powerful anti-tobacco commercials. But then, two and a half years ago, Alex Bogusky left his firm, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, for new challenges.

Now, the Boulderite is involved with a host of different projects, none of which have anything to do with selling cars during the Super Bowl. He and his wife, Ana, started The FearLess Revolution, aimed at helping nonprofits succeed. Through COMMON, Alex and Ana mentor social entrepreneurs and start-ups. In 2012, Alex and partners started MadeMovement, a marketing agency dedicated to the resurgence in American manufacturing.

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He continues to make ads. A recent one uses polar bears to attack soft-drink companies for the health problems sugary drinks contribute to the American diet.

HIS GARAGE

Bogusky, 49, is well-known for his advertising. But who knew he used to be a professional motocross jock? And that he grew up racing BMX bikes? Back in those days, he couldn't afford to hire a mechanic, so he learned to fix his two-wheeled machines himself. Now, he spends as much time as possible tinkering in the detached garage behind his old Mapleton Hill house, in Boulder, where last week his adolescent passions were converging — he was installing an engine on a bicycle. One of his favorite garage pursuits? Welding.

"My grandfather was my hero when I was a kid," said Bogusky. "I had this toy, where you could weld plastic together with it. I was stoked about it — I was putting plastic together permanently. I was welding. But my grandfather was dismissive of it, because it wasn't real welding. So I've always wanted to weld, and I've been teaching myself to weld over the years."

Question: What do you do?

Answer: I feel like all I do is (mess) around in the garage. These other things fit in between. Anyway, you can't get away from being a communicator if you are in marketing. I guess that's what I'm best at. And so usually where I'm drawn to is those conversations that have gotten stagnant. Maybe they are around sugar, or plastic bottles, or climate change. That is where I see myself — opening stagnant conversations, blowing them up, and then smarter people will figure out what to do about it.

Q: You spend a lot of time and energy wrestling with climate-change issues. You worked with Al Gore, in fact, to puncture the myth of "clean coal." Why?

A: The reality is that the predictions have been conservative. There is no way we will not see several degree changes in temperature. And with the amount of temperature change, we have seen our atmosphere holds something like 5 percent more moisture. If the atmosphere is warmer and it can hold more moisture, then it takes longer to get moisture to get enough rainfall. And then when it rains, it really comes down. So there is this pattern of more drought and more flooding.

Q: Seems hopeless.

A: The march of humanity has been amazing. If you look where we were 150 years ago, we were willing to enslave other human beings for profit. With child labor, there were companies that said, 'Look, if we can't use kids, that will ruin our business.' They lobbied to not change laws around child labor. Right now we do think it is OK for companies to do things in the name of profit that I think we will find morally reprehensible and unacceptable. What gives me hope is we are good at messing stuff up now, but I think we will have the technology to keep pace and correct the damage we have done.

Q: You grew up in Miami, and helped turn your Miami ad agency into an international phenomenon. But seven years ago you moved to Boulder. Why?

A: I never really liked Miami. It's a soulless place. The wealthy get an amazing lifestyle and everyone else has no parks to go to, no infrastructure, and a very average lifestyle. When my son was born I walked out of the hospital and thought, before he is 12, we will move West. We moved out here when he was 9. One of the things I love about Boulder is there is this attitude that anything can happen. You can do anything from Boulder, achieve anything. I don't think there is another small town that has that level of chutzpah. And I have always loved the West. I like the way it sounds when you walk on the ground here. As a kid when we would take vacations here, I remember I was 7, we were trout fishing, and I thought this is the way the ground should sound.

Q: Both of your parents were artists. You grew up surrounded by creative people. What's a cool memory?

A: I was in school, and everyone drew their Christmas trees and the teacher is going down the row, complimenting the kids. The teacher gets to mine, and it's round. And all of the kids start to laugh, and the teacher is like, 'That's interesting.' I went home and it was the way our Christmas tree always looked. My dad would buy bushes he wanted to plant in the yard. We would decorate the bush. It was a beautiful idea. Anyway, I went home and cried and I said, 'Can we have a pointy Christmas tree?'

Q: What is your favorite possession?

A: I have tried to work at not getting attached to objects. My favorite possession is so dumb. When we had to evacuate for the fires here, I pulled out a trailer and started putting stuff in that we didn't want to lose. I put my bikes in there, photographs. But the thing that stands out for me is wool socks. I believe if you have good wool socks, you will be happy. Every Christmas, I buy the kids good wool socks. I like SmartWool.

Q: Why do you spend so much time tinkering in your garage?

A: It's very meditative to have something that you do, and you don't think about anything else. That is, you do think about other things, but you don't realize it. That's what happens in the garage. A lot of people don't make things because they don't want to face the things they make. People think everything has to be perfect, but perfection is impossible. Look at all of the cooking shows on reality TV. Are more of us cooking now? I think fewer of us are. Cooking is so removed from what we do that we can actually put it on TV as a spectator sport. It's the same with the building shows, the choppers shows, the home renovation shows. It's sport now.

Q: Made in America has become very important to you. Why?

A: I really bought into this idea that we in America think of things, and other countries make things. But we need jobs for people who want to do things with their hands, jobs they can feel good about. We can't McJob everything. At the same time, I realized that many of the things I care about, like environmental health, are tied up with manufacturing. China is pouring so many things into their rivers — they look like our rivers in the 1950s. But when we make things here in the United States, we have an Environmental Protection Agency, you can't just pour stuff into rivers. So we make things cleaner. We don't build nets around factories to catch workers jumping from windows. We don't use child labor. Many of those problems are solved by just making products here. As a guy raised by hippies, and moving to Boulder, I don't think I have the typical reasons for wanting to see the American resurgence in manufacturing. We will create the kind of manufacturing the world can sustain itself on.

Q: What living person do you most admire?

A: My wife, because she taught me everything from proper grammar to how to love.

Q: What is your favorite way of spending time?

A: I like having a project. It doesn't matter to me whether the project is a chair that I'm making or a Super Bowl commercial. I really like just getting totally immersed in one thing and not being required to pull out of it. My wife calls it the Bogusky bubble. My dad had it, too.

Q: The local, so-called artisanal trend has been a big one in food for a while. But now I see big corporations using the trend to market their products. Must we always be hyper-vigilant about things being co-opted by corporations?

A: I think you want co-opting. Let's say your thing is clean beef. No hormones, grass-fed. Do you believe in it for your business, or as a mission? Sometimes I think people get confused. They believe it's a mission but then it's their business and they don't want anybody else to do it. But it was your mission. You should want it to be co-opted. Eventually, for example, there might not be something called craft brewing. It will be called just brewing again.

Q: You still like bikes a lot, right?

A: I love them. The only time I drive my car is on the weekends, to go skiing or something. There are many times when I get in my car and it won't start because it's been a month or two since I've been in it.

Q: Cars used to be such a big deal, didn't they? People were always talking about cars. Now, not so much.

A: My son, who is 16, doesn't care to drive, doesn't care about his license, doesn't care to learn to drive. He couldn't tell you the difference between a Ferrari and a Toyota. I thought that was weird, but there is a whole generation of kids now who don't care about driving and cars. For our success, our survival, we can't create another generation where cars are really important for how you feel about yourself. Kids now are putting the car away, putting it way down there on the list of important things. That will create change that is not possible now.

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